Although they may tryto claim otherwise, the only thing most people associate instantly with the name ‘BitTorrent’ is the world of online piracy, an industry which could be on the decline in the USA if latest statistics on the file sharing website are to be believed.

The report from ‘broadband measurement’ specialists Sandvine claims that visitor numbers to the well-known site have declined in America for the first time in their 12-year operative history.

It notes that coverage in the country dropped by 20% during the last two quarters, a vast change from ‘global internet traffic’ numbers 10 years ago in 2003 which noted BitTorrent as being responsible for 60% of all internet traffic across the USA.

While that share naturally dropped with other websites such as YouTube and Netflix emerging and performing strongly as more people turned to the internet, the extent to which it has happened (reaching as low as 7%) will not be as pleasant or easily excusable reading for BitTorrent, especially with other combined video services accounding for over 50% of internet traffic at present, closing in on BitTorrent’s old peaks.

However, the only figure of real concern will be how many people are visiting, though the trends of ‘legal alternatives’ and their effect on the market are clear to see as BitTorrent retain around half of all upload traffic within the continent of Europe, where services such as Netflix are less frequent.

Ernesto Van Der Dar, the founder of torrent industry news website Torrent Freak reflected on these developments, stating: “If this trend continues I think it can most likely be explained by the increase in legal alternatives people have in the United States. In Europe and other parts of the world, it’s much harder to watch recent films and TV shows on demand so unauthorised BitTorrent users continue to grow there.”